book reviews · life

A Quick Catch Up

So, the news in brief and some reading roundups are

The not-COVID I had at the beginning of the month? Yeah, it turned out to actually be COVID. Li and I were both pretty sick for about 10 days, and completely exhausted for about another week. I still get fatigued pretty quickly but thankfully we were both triple vaxxed and survived in once piece.

I got my module result for this year of my degree – for A112 Cultures I received a distinction. 86%! As you can imagine, I am over the freaking moon. So that’s my first academic year complete, 120 credits. Only another 4 modules to go, starting in October with A229 Exploring The Classical World

I’ve been playing a lot of Stardew Valley, and Star Trek: Timelines. Li managed to bring home a Wii the other day, I rediscovered my Game Boy Advance, and we’ve also set up my old SNES. There has been much retro gaming and it has been wonderful.

Of course, a lot of gaming, a slight complete addiction to Pointless, and introducing Li to the Bridgerton Netflix show has meant I haven’t done a huge amount of reading lately. The bookx I have read recently:

Matt Haig – Reasons To Stay Alive
3/5, memoir, mental health, non-fiction, psychology
Bizarrely, as much as I thoroughly enjoyed the other couple of Haig’s books, this one didn’t gel with me. I found it a little too self-help-y, a little too twee. I didn’t connect with it and felt it bringing me down, rather than uplifting me.

Mary Beard – How Do We Look / The Eye of Faith
4/5, art history, history, non-fiction, philosophy, religion
Very interesting, would have liked it to have gone a little more in-depth in a couple of places but I do love her descriptions of the art and places she’s visited and writes about, and it helps bring it to life for me. Her passion also shines through

Mira Grant – Parasite
5/5, horror, medical, science-fiction, thriller
OMG y’all, I could not put this down. It had been on my TBR for ages, finally got it out of the library and sat and read the whole thing in one afternoon. I was reacting outloud and flailing and squeaking at Li… who picked it up as soon as I finished it, also read it in one sitting – falling asleep at like 1am!

My reserves of Symbiont and Chimera have just come in and oh yes, I will be starting Symbiont tomorrow!

Holly Black – Tithe
3.5/, faeries, paranormal, urban-fantasy, young-adult
This one is very much a case of ‘I liked it, but…’ – I was disappointed, really. It was enjoyable enough but there was something missing. It was a little predictable in places, the characters needed a little more rounding and the pacing was… hmm… uneven. And even though there are more books in the series, I don’t care enough to see if the library even has them.

Melanie Cantor – Life and Other Happy Endings
3/5, chick-lit, family, friends, library, read, romance

Such a weird read, and literally lost starts with every section of the story. So it started off as this great 5-star read about a woman who found out she had 3 months to live and was telling people the things she wanted to tell them etc… only then she wasn’t dying because of a test result mix-up, and she was back to being trodden over… only then she was pregnant and yawn. She was way more interesting when she thought she was dying!

Joanna Hickson – First Of The Tudors
4/5, historical-fiction

We’ve covered my love for all things War Of The Roses, yes? And this was no exception! The story centers around Jasper Tudor, his wardship of young Henry Tudor and his relationship with Margaret Beaufort, and the intricacies of the Yorkists, Lancastrians, Tudors, and Warwick The Kingmaker. I will be checking out more of Hickson’s work – she has other stories set in the time period.

Which brings me on to what I’m currently reading:

book reviews

Drive-by Mini-Reviews

The only issue with reading multiple books at the same time, is that every now and again you manage to finish a whole collection of them all at the same time, which is what’s happened to me over the last few days. And, naturally, I was busy with school and work and real life and didn’t have time to write up a review for them.

I contemplated writing a full review for each one, queuing them up and letting them post over a couple of days but honestly… couldn’t be bothered. So you’re just going to get some mini reviews instead!

The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid.
4/5, historical-fiction, lgbtqia+, romance
Absolutely fucking loved it. I can definitely see why everyone has been raving about it and in my opinion, bery worth the hype! It took quite a bit of reading but the more I got into it, the less I could put it down. There were many excited phone calls to Li where I rambled about each husband and each era of Evelyn’s life. It was beautiful and heartbreaking and I defintely want to read more by this author

Life Support by Tess Gerritsen.
3/5, medical, mystery, suspense, thriller
My mum and I used to read the Rizzoli & Isles books as they came out in the 2000s, but I never read very much of Gerritsen’s works that aren’t in the series. This gives you an idea of how long it’s been on my TBR. I have the physical copy but ended up checking this out on Libby over Christmas when I was at Li’s/was exploring the app. I found it a little slow to start with, didn’t feel like I meshed with many of the characters and couldn’t quite see how the pregnant hooker storyline meshed with the CJD storyline… until the last quarter of the book when everything came crashing together and wow. Reminded me why I love Gerritsen (more of her books back on my TBR) and why I love medical thrillers!

The New Topping Book by Dossie Easton & Janet W. Hardy
3/5, bdsm, non-fiction, sexuality
I’ve read both The Topping and Bottoming Books by Easton & Hardy and, probably because I’m a sub, I definitely preferred the Bottoming Book. This one was interesting enough though, taught me more about the mindset of Dominants and what they can/do get out of BDSM relationships. I loved the scenes interspersed througout the book and the toys section was fun. But, admittedly, had me rolling my eyes a little at the ritual and spirituality chapters

Pilgrimage (Very Short Introduction) by Ian Reader
3/5, non-fiction, religion, travel
Remember how I said last year I was really struggling to read? Yeah, I started this in March 2021. Nothing against the book, it was very interesting. The concept of pilgrimages has always interested me, we touched on the subject in a religious studies unit of my course and since I have access to the Very Short Introductions library through my university library, I picked it up to read. Both religious and secular pilgrimages, as well as historical information were included and I enjoyed it at a lot

I am still trying to read far too much, because I’m me. 14 books right now. But I’m mostly focusing on just 5 – most of which are due back to the library next week. Then I’m going to focus on the rest of my currently reading and working on my physical TBR before checking any more out. Or, at least that’s the plan…
A Court Of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
The Comfort Book by Matt Haig
Beyond The Gender Binary by Alok Vaid-Menow